About the Book
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Author:
- Heidi Heilig
Cover Story: Less Creepy
BFF Charm: Big Sister
Talky Talk: Disconnected
Bonus Factor: Maps
Anti-Bonus Factor: Dan Scott Award for Awful Parenting
Relationship Status: Occasional Travel Companions
Danger, Will Robinson! The Ship Beyond Time is the second book in the Girl From Everywhere series. If you have not read the first book—The Girl From Everywhere—turn away now. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. If you have read the first book, however, feel free to continue below. I will refrain from major spoilers in my review, but there will be hints at plot points and details about the story.
Cover Story: Less Creepy
Still totally digging the simple, graphic nature of this cover, which goes so nicely with the first book’s. I’m also super glad they moved away from the eyes in the wave—the tattoo is much less “Private Eyes.”
And again—sorry for that earworm.
The Deal:
Nix’s father—captain of the good ship The Temptation, Navigator, and kind of crap parent—finally realized that his obsession with finding a way to travel back in time to before his wife disappeared, regardless of the chance that doing so could wipe Nix from existence, and has seemingly turned himself around. He’s struggling with withdrawals, both literally (opium addiction’s a bitch) and figuratively (true love isn’t something you get over easily), but he’s trying, and that’s what matters most to Nix.
She’s now turned her worried mind to another part of her grandmother’s prophecy: the one that says she’ll lose the one she loves to the sea. Being “more than friends” with Kashmir is a new idea to them both, and Nix struggles with if it’s better to love and lose, or never love at all.
When a mysterious stranger arrives with a possible answer to all of her problems, Nix jumps at the chance to fix everything. But mucking about with time and reality isn’t a course that’s ever run smooth.
BFF Charm: Big Sister
I get super frustrated with Nix’s need to solve all problems by herself, and shut out the people in her life who mean well. (Of course, it didn’t help that she reminded me of myself a lot, either. What’s that they say about not liking personality traits in others that remind you too much of yourself?) I totally get it—sometimes it’s easier to try and fail if no one knows what you’re attempting—but come on girl. You have friends who are better than your family, and secrets, even if they’re kept with the best of intentions, frequently tend to do more harm than good.
Swoonworthy Scale: 6
After sharing a heated moment in The Girl From Everywhere, Nix and Kashmir realized that their friendship was something more. And in The Ship Beyond Time, they make moves toward being together together, but Nix’s plotting and planning and the plot of the story gets in their way. It left me frustrated, because there’s SO MUCH promise between the two.
Talky Talk: Disconnected
I love the basic idea of the Girl From Everywhere series (see Fantasy Travel, below), and it’s obvious how much research Heidi Heilig puts into the stories behind her main plot. (Her author’s notes at the end of each book are educational and fascinating.) I still struggle to connect with the characters, however; there’s a lack of urgency about their situations, even when they’re dire. I want to go on an adventure with these books, but seem to drag my feet when it comes to losing myself fully in the tales.
Bonus Factor: Fantasy Travel
Although Heilig’s world is based in reality, the fact that her main character is a Navigator who can travel through time with the help of any map moves the book from magical reality firmly into fantasy. Particularly when the maps are of mythological or fantastical places that never really existed, but Nix can travel to anyway. It’s such a cool idea.
Maps are some of my favorite things about fantasy novels (those that include them, anyway), and I would love to be able to literally travel to some of the places I read about in books, rather than just figuratively in my imagination.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Dan Scott Award for Awful Parenting
Although Slate makes an effort to be better to both Nix and himself in this book, he’s still distant and a lackluster father at best. He’s one of those people who probably should never have had children, because he himself is too selfish and self-obsessed to put anyone else first.
Relationship Status: Occasional Travel Companions
Our second date was a bit better than our first, Book, but I’m still not certain that we’re really going anywhere serious. I do still want to travel with you, particularly to all those fantastical places I can otherwise only dream about, but I think it would be better if we just stayed friends, rather than forcing anything more.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from Greenwillow Books, but got neither a private dance party with Tom Hiddleston nor money in exchange for this review. The Ship Beyond Time is available now.
